


Being Made

by Senket



Series: The Clothes Make The Man [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clothing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-13
Updated: 2011-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-15 14:02:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/528085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John seems to be staying for good, which can only mean one thing: it's time for Mummy Holmes to update his wardrobe accordingly. Her youngest can hardly be seen in the constant company of a man that shops from the discount bin, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being Made

=

John had been watching Sherlock pace up and down the small clear area just at the entrance, rambling about their current case, when the door opened suddenly. Mrs. Hudson flashed them a greeting smile before she disappeared downstairs again, leaving them only with the image of a porcelain-faced lady in resplendent royal purple.

Sherlock fixed his gaze on the graceful woman, a look of something like trepidation in his eyes. John wasn’t sure he’d seen him so still- he certainly hadn’t seen him that worried since The Pool Incident. At least he wasn’t frantic this time, though John wasn’t completely certain it was any better.

“Sherlock,” she greeted tonelessly, casting a displeased eye at the mess filling the flat.

“Mummy,” he replied, edging out of her way. She slid in and installed herself near the window, casually looking down into the street for a moment before turning her attention to John.

The maiden that followed her in pulled a notebook and cloth measuring tape from her satchel, looking intensely disinterested as she asked him to ‘strip, please.’

“Excuse me?” he sputtered, casting a quick, nervous glance in Sherlock’s direction, flushing a brilliant pink when he noticed the Cynthia Holmes’ lips purse at the motion.

At this point, he’d sort of given up trying to resist his want for Sherlock, at least in private, but he certainly wasn’t ready to stand nearly-nude, exposed in front of the man. Particularly not with his resplendent and _intimidating_ mother in the room.

“Strip. Feel free to keep your underthings on,” she added with an irritated tone, as though speaking to a particularly petulant child. Was everyone in the Holmes employ equally-minded? Because they all treated _him_ like an idiot at the least provocation. Feeling the burn in his cheeks only increasing, he tossed off his clothes quickly, leaving them in a pile of his armchair as he stood in the middle of the room, carefully avoid looking in Sherlock’s direction. Unfortunately that left him only with the window, the Holmes matriarch’s gleaming hair lit up by the sunlight as she inspected him.

Sharp green eyes trailed down his arms, his torso, his legs, evaluating, taking in scars and hard muscles with little expression. “I suppose you’ll do in the long run,” she said with a moue of displeasure. He might’ve bristled under different circumstances; as it were, he only managed to keep himself still as the seamstress moved to take his measurements.

He shot a frenetic glance at her son where he leaned against the doorframe. John startled at the look of intense concentration in the man’s face, Sherlock’s eyes flirting along the lines of his limbs. Looking away quickly, he felt his flush intensify, frantically focusing on Cynthia Holmes’ presence to avoid what would’ve been an extreme embarrassing physical reaction.

**\--------------------------**

John sighed when, on his way home from the store after work, a sleek black car pulled close to the curb, creeping forward at his walking speed. He stopped, looking towards it as it followed suit. Shaking his head, he glanced down the street before sliding in without an invitation. He dropped the bags between him and Mycroft, a little amused that the man had come to him instead of having ‘Anthea’ fetch him.

“Met your mother again today,” he said as a greeting, knowing Mycroft was, no doubt, aware of that. Probably why he was here, even.

“Quite a woman,” he replied with an air of esteem, smiling that tight Mycroft smile.

“So I’m to be a member of the Holmes clothing label models, now, am I?”

“Perhaps you could term it a warning,” Mycroft told him with the amused little smile that was so different for Sherlock’s. John didn’t bother too hard trying to think about what the hell that could mean.

**\------------------------**

John nearly tripped over a shin-height box when he stumbled home from an overnight shift at the clinic, staring down at the box sleepily before he could make out the little card pinned to the cardboard. He plucked it off, holding it up to see it in the flickering light of the nearest streetlamp.

The message was simple: More to come. MH

With a sigh, he gathered the deceptively heavy box, lugging it up the stairs. Sherlock glanced over from a complex-looking wooden puzzle, general boredom making his expression heavy and lazy. John cocked his head at him, dropping the large box on the nearest clean space- the standing side table beside his armchair, which he often reminded Sherlock to keep his things off of. He used his keys to slit open the packing tape, quirking a smile at the row of raw-silk ties, tasteful greens and blues and the occasional dark purple or red.

He closed the flaps, resolving to look through it at a more reasonable time.

“Does this make me the Holmes Family Kept Man?” he asked, glancing up at Sherlock with a lazy, tired smile.

“Perhaps you would be if you had let Mycroft pay you for information but, seeing as you work at a clinic, I’ve got my doubts.”

“Semantics. You just feel like making things difficult for me.”

“Occasionally,” Sherlock glanced up with a little smile, clicking the pieces apart without looking.

“Admittedly,” he added after several minutes of silence, so that it took John a few moments to return to the last point of the conversation, “I’d prefer not to think on the implications of you belonging to my _family_ in such a way.” ‘If you catch my drift,’ John tacked on automatically when Sherlock peered up at him through his lashes, arching his eyebrows in a startling imitation of his mother.

“Oh?”

“I don’t share,” he answered simply, turning away to lock the wooden blocks back together. “Especially not with Mycroft.”

**\--------------------------**

John was in a great mood when he walked in. The new olive-green coat he had found beneath the ties and a week's worth of clothes had kept him utterly dry and warm in the muggy weather. He’d never dreamed of owning anything this nice for day-to-day wear. The only item he owned at all better than this was his dress uniform, currently encased in a heavy plastic garment bag at the back of his closet.

The smile dropped off his face when he noticed the sounds of heavy activity from above- his room- and the deer-in-the-headlights look on Sherlock’s face from where he was uncharacteristically curled up on the couch. He ran upstairs to find a small group of people bustling about, packing all of his clothes into boxes marked for charity, replacing them carefully with sets of dark-colored button-downs, vests, narrow long-sleeved shirts. Even his shoes seemed to be vanishing into boxes. With a surprised shout he entered the fray, trying to unpack as they boxed. They won out, in the end, and he left, frustrated and tired. He _liked_ his clothes, fashionable or not.

Sherlock was working very deliberately on a chemistry set of bubbling green liquids when John came down the steps, mumbling under his breath. John knew perfectly well that meant ‘too busy for conversation right now, really, I _swear_ ’ by now. Coward, he thought with a scowl, throwing himself into his armchair.

The youngest Holmes child finally looked up when the door closed after the last worker, smiling with something a little like apology at his flatmate. He tilted his head towards his bedroom, gesturing at John to follow.

Sherlock’s room looked like an extension of the living room, piles of books and papers everywhere, except that the bed was clear of rubbish and the closet itself was spotless. John leaned against the doorframe, curious but only mildly so, still mostly put out. Sherlock vanished among a pile of things as tall as himself. A triumphant sound came first, and then the smiling man. “Here,” he said, thrusting a shoe-box at John.

The doctor arched an eyebrow at him. Opening the box revealed his beige jumper crammed in, and a pair of worn jeans. “Sometimes, Sherlock,” he said lightly, unable to stop the glee bubbling in him, flashing the man a grin, “you are so bloody amazing I don’t know what to do with you.”

Sherlock beamed back. “Yes. I know.”

John only laughed.


End file.
